Excerpt: “The slogan says “Smoking means being a slave to tobacco.” The PSAs have generated quite a bit of controversy in France. Some argue they’re pointlessly sensationalist, that they trivialize sexual abuse, or that young people are more likely to laugh at them than to pay any attention to the intended message. Not surprisingly, tobacco sellers are unhappy about being associated with pedophilia (via abcnews).”

This is what I had to say:

“This is utterly gross. I look at this and I see incest. Not surprising for a country that has a homosexual pedophile for a culture minister, is a brazen defender of Polanski, and has the first lady that it has.”

So I replied to katyhalo’s “Adverts just as nasty and politicians just as dodgy can be found in any country”:

Yeah, like in China, all over the place. All countries are all alike, there is no difference anywhere.
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Isn’t their “you can’t criticize France, because we can find other countries just as bad” simply ridiculous?

Fortunately, the professional advertising regulatory authority (Arpp) in France has asked for the removal of the sexual abuse campaign pictures. The advertising agency BDDP & Fils has not responded. So typically French.

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Updated (March 14 2010) with my reply to this comment left by fangirl (click on the comments thingy to view full comment):

@fangirl: Ergo, taking this whole thing and turning it into a jab at France was trollish and unnecessary.
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On the contrary, it’s exactly what needs to be examined here: France, the country. Obviously that means the current culture in the country which is what allows such a campaign to be made public, and which is also reflected by all the reactions to it.

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@fangirl: It was xenophobic and didn’t contribute to the discussion at all. You weren’t criticizing France, you were taking potshots at an entire culture based on what appears to be a sample size of two people.
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There is nothing xenophobic about criticizing France regarding it’s irresponsible culture on adultery, sexuality and sexual exploitation and abuse.

I was using the example of key people in France as symbolic to a variety of problems in their current cultural attitudes about these issues.

And your sentence “You weren’t criticizing France, you were taking potshots at an entire culture” doesn’t make any sense.

France has its own culture, and that’s exactly what I was criticizing. You can’t say logically that I am criticizing France without criticizing French culture. Completely absurd.

One fine example of ignorant trolls calling for censorship on Sociological Images.